Policing the Police

Policing the Police: The Rise of Copwatch

VICE // PRODUCER & CAMERA OPERATOR

The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, MO in 2014, galvanized a renewed public interest in the concept of citizen policing, but for David Whitt, Michael Brown’s neighbor at the time, it was the moment he decided his community needed a full-time force of people policing the police. Whitt, a father of four and an electrician by trade, has since dedicated his life to working with Copwatch - an activist organization that works to create a consistent and sustained system of citizen police monitoring with cameras or other recording devices as a way to prevent police brutality.

Whitt still patrols his neighborhood where police and citizen interactions are frequent, collecting hours upon hours of video documentation in the hopes that this can prevent another Michael Brown.